Slashdot Mirror
School's Out Forever at SV High Tech High
theodp writes "Touted as a model of successful education by the likes of Bill Gates, Silicon Valley's High Tech High just held its first — and last — commencement ceremony, graduating only 21 students in its brief history. Despite the financial support of the world's richest man, the charter school cited money woes as it voted to shut its doors. Adding insult to the poor HTH kids' injury, the local public H.S. district plunked down $8.6M to snatch up their abandoned school and will turn it over to a brand new crop of kids in the fall."
I can't wait for the same thing to happen to the high school Microsoft got mixed up with in Philadelphia.
My guess is they weren't using free software?
Adding insult? Oh come on. If this school had just gone to waste that would be an insult. It will probably be a good school in the long run.
Education is not about modern equipment. In fact modern equipmetn may seriously hinder education at times, when the sudents attention and mental capabilities are bound more by the technology they used than the subject they are learning. My guess is it will still take a few decades (or centuries) until computers can compete with pen and paper and blackboard (that have been perfected for a few centuries as well...). I know that in order to be creative and insightful I use pen and paper or, even better, a whiteboard.
Incidentially some of the "worlds richest men" are directly responsible for a slow computer revolution.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Adding insult to the poor HTH kids' injury, the local public H.S. district plunked down $8.6M to snatch up their abandoned school and will turn it over to a brand new crop of kids in the fall.
How on earth could this possibly be considered an insult? Because the public school district is so apparently awash in cash yet didn't subsidize their extremely specialized and (apparently) financially unsuccessful school, but instead let it flounder? Cry me a goddamned river.
... when your Principal is Microsoft Bob and your school mascot is Clippy.
High Tech High is alive and well in San Diego County. They're now up to 6 campuses, I believe with one elementary middle school, one middle school, three high schools in south county and a new middle school and high school opening in North county this fall.
Their robotics team is very well respected and consistently performs well at national competitions. Their college placement rates are substantially higher than other local high schools. The failure of the SV HTH actually had more to do with administrative and personnel issues that were unique to the San Francisco campus. HTH continues to thrive and grow in California.
Am I suppose to be sad rich kids have to go to public school instead of some elite snobby school?
Just the fact that there is stuff like this nowadays really makes me want to go back to school again.
I hated grade school (college somewhat less but I didn't learn anything new). Going to a school like this would have been awesome assuming I could have gone to it. I guess I would have had to live in CA.
Hmmm, even though I'm in my 30's I can easily pass for a highschool student. Maybe I should enroll.
Maybe I would have thrived there, instead of ultimately getting the hell out, getting my GED, and putting in time at community college before going on to uni. I certainly don't like the fact that only those wealthy enough were able to go, but I think that this is what our public high schools should be. Innovative, creative, and fun, with the chance to implement what is being learned. I believe that it would go a long way to getting rid of the, "Why do I need to learn this?" attitude that even I was guilty of at the time.
Unfortunately, K-12 education isn't exactly where the government's priorities are. Maybe one day.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Rich kids--or rather, kids with the ability to spend money on their education, whether it comes from grants, rich parents, or middle-class parents sacrificing like mad for their kids--will always have the choice of going to a school they pay for. Because they can choose where they go, and they bring money, there'll be competition for them. Schools that need to compete need to perform.
Public schools don't need to compete. That's not, by any means, the only problem that exists in public schools--bad parenting is responsible for a huge number of school-related problems, in both public and private schools.
I went to a public school. It was great, largely from a second generation immigrant community, though far from having only that group present--but there are public schools that are more dangerous than taking the subway at two in the morning or walking through Harlem, with much worse behavior. (A guy I know had to pull a student off a female teacher, because the student pushed her against the wall and started humping her leg.) (At one school, the students beat up a cop in front of the school. So the cops came in and basically acted like thugs for a week.) How many knife-fights a year are there at private schools? We want experiments in education. We want to find solutions, and to try new ideas, even if it's a technological idea that, inherently, a geek knows will be more trouble than it's worth unless it's done exceptionally well.
It's scientific. We experiment. And sometimes the school goes under. But hopefully some people involved learned a bit, and maybe they can do better next time.
Our school system issues aren't all the fault of the government. Sure, "No child left behind" has fucked it up even more, but we can only lay a certain amount of blame on the government.
Our society looks down on education, to the point where we pass over well-educated, well-spoken presidential candidates for the apparent moron, the "regular joe guy I'd like to have a beer with." (Sorry, he doesn't drink any more, so you won't get that chance. But if you want to do some blow, he's the man.) Until we start respecting education as a society, our school system is doomed.
Not that we can't fix the government's problems with education, while we're waiting: stop funding schools based on property taxes, which slants education in favor of the rich, and punishes the poor. Stop pretending you can replace teachers with a computer, or some bloke off the street, and start paying them better. Repeal "No Child Left Behind."
Anyway. We've got a long way to go before we can fix our education system. But there's a lot more than the government at work here.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I don't know about having the privileged class assist schools. For our schools to succeed, they need to do it themselves. Maybe the fact that a sponsor with deep pockets was in the mix is also the reason the school failed. Just like a liberal welfare program, unless your own money is on the line, there's no incentive to do better.
And now the school property is just going to expand the existing public indoctrination system. Very sad.
No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men.-Ronald Reagan
Did anyone else read that title and think Sweet Valley High?
Just goes to show that even the world's richest person can't afford the TCO of running a school with Windows...
Twinstiq, game news
This was a charter school, not a private school. Charters are public and, like all public schools, free to attend. Some are associated with particular school districts, some are not and are overseen solely at the state level. It sounds like this one was not affiliated with the school district, but that does NOT make it private.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Way to half-ass yet another product, Bill.
I'm really pleased to see this happen. Yes - I do feel sorry for the failed venture that was High Tech High Redwood City (however High Tech High's in San Diego are, I understand, doing very well). Summit Prep graduated it's first senior class this year. 100% of seniors are off to college. Yes, 100%. Good indication that Summit is doing *very* well. My daughter loves the school, the staff and the students. Many High Tech High students have applied to attend Summit - some will get in, others will go to other schools in the district.
Rich people are eccentric. Poor people are strange. Me, I'd be happy with odd.
No Child Left Behind is achieved by holding all the rest back.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I was briefly involved in getting this school started (I was at the periphery, but we qualified for "founding family" status). Starting a school is a difficult proposition, and the forces aligned against starting a charter school are daunting. The local school district typically doesn't want it because it will siphon money from their direct control. The teachers' union doesn't want it because the teachers in the new school probably won't be unionized, and if the school succeeds there will be less need for teachers at the unionized schools. Staff need to be hired, staff willing to put in the long hours and take the risk of this startup (with no chance of a big payoff in the event of an IPO.) (I came in one evening and helped the director mop floors in preparation for an open house - staff need to be willing to do anything). Most parents don't want to take the risk of sending their children to a new, unproven school. Space for the new school is very difficult to find, especially since there isn't much money available for space and the school will be on a vigorous four-year growth plan, adding a new class of students every year. (I think this school had three different locations in its short lifetime, but I lost track). The standard state funding for students won't cover startup costs, so someone has to apply for and win grants.
On a side note, I've also learned that it doesn't make a difference if a school uses computers based on Windows, Linux, or Macs. They all break. (The other charter school I work with uses Apple notebooks exclusively, and we rely on several volunteers to keep them in repair.)
If you have a Charter School near you, ask if they need help. They probably do, and readers of SlashDot can make a difference in education by providing some behind-the-scenes support to keep those computers going.
My guess is that your OSS fanboyism is not based on an accurate view of the situation. Charter schools in general haven't done very well. Nice idea, bad execution.
Traditional lectures are abysmal teaching methods.
http://lowery.tamu.edu/Teaming/Morgan1/sld023.htm
Deleted
News flash: Not everybody learns the same way.
The fact that one guy didn't learn well by taking notes doesn't mean that taking notes is a universal hindrance for all. Likewise, transcribing things helps many people retain information.
Why the heck do so many people think one size must fit all?
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
It's not in any valley.
San Francisco isn't in Silicon Valley either, for the record.
Honestly, people should come up with another name for the high tech area because Palo Alto isn't in Silicon Valley either. As high tech as Palo Alto is, it was never really involved in silicon, just software.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Traditional lectures are abysmal teaching methods.
What a load. People have been teaching and learning forever. A good course will have a combination of all the things in the Pyramid you link to and any display technology will do. Let's review.
Method (average retention rate)
"Traditional:"
"Teaming:"
A reasonable course must have a combination of all of these things. A lecture must be used to introduce the students to new material. If the students already know it, you are wasting their time. The students should be reading up on things and should be encouraged to ask questions, this is also known as homework and discussion. "Practice by doing" is what homework is for and good classes will have good examples to follow. Teaching Others is what happens when students get together to help each other with homework. It's not as good as being forced to lecture, but there's not always time for that when there's lots of ground to cover as there is in every class up to graduate school and research. Where there's too much material for the student to learn, they don't have time to teach.
These things can all be accomplished with any teaching aids, all the way back to scratching in sand. Movies and other image projections are a real improvement and should be used on occasion to show the student exactly what they are learning about. Tablets, white boards, and chalk boards are all substitutes for sand. Any magic they offer comes entirely from the person drawing on them. I still prefer chalk to white board and think tablets are too expensive for what they provide.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I actually graduated from HTH in 2006. A lot of what they say is pretty bogus. The school is very biased about its' students. They will help students with better grades and essentially leave the students with worse grades to the sharks. It's a sick system where they help those who don't need help and punish those who do need help. Bill gates did visit our school, he's a cool guy in person. The drag was, he visited with Oprah. Oprah was a fat bitch to every kid she hadn't been introduced to personally by our principle. Such a fat bitch.
Eat sleep die
Maybe the fact that a sponsor with deep pockets was in the mix is also the reason the school failed. Just like a liberal welfare program, unless your own money is on the line, there's no incentive to do better.
Perhaps we can transmute the "learn by doing" into child labor. Why give culture and ideas to people when you could just teach them good slave labor skills? Exposing people to anything but broadcast media facts might make them uppity.
No, I don't believe in child labor and can make a case for real public education. Well educated people are a business asset that provides more back to society than their education costs. They are also better defenders of freedom, which also makes everyone wealthier. Expecting the schools themselves to turn a profit is suicidally short sited.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It's not so much that he did not give enough, as it is that the community was not willing to fund his vision of a school. This is typical of charter schools and Bill's schools in particular. They provide a small portion of the money needed and expect the rest to be provided by the state, but it's all spent under Bill's rules. In charter schools and public libraries blessed by his patranage, the software must all be M$. You can see how this can be used to create a cash flow and charter schools stand accused of schools supply cronyism. Those selling stand to make a killing. This is just a small part of the short circuits community oversite built into most public funding, especially for schools. Sometimes this is a good thing, other times it's bad. Ultimately, it's better to have functional communities than it is to have McSchool franchises.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
From http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/docs/HOWTO/Advoca cy
I like the concept of such a school, but due to the enviorment and current structure of the educational system doesn't even allow this to have a chance.
/b/ on 4chan than learning trigonometry, something I'm not going to use commonly in many scenarios I've imagined, even when it comes to spaceflight; much of it is computerized, contrary to popular belief most of the work in space is done by autopilot.(I play a lot of spaceflight sims when bored.)
I'm 13 and am currently in 8th grade, I'm in one of those poor areas that are trying to get kids to learn by plopping shitty MacBooks(Or another means to get on MySpace to most people, and if not chances are to play MarbleBlast Gold) in front of them. Technology can indeed boost education, but only when it's designed with education in mind, not doing whatever.
I myself am guilty of the same thing. In the middle of Algebra I find myself more interested in browing
What bugs me most is how it's unimaginativley and boringly plopped in front of you. In science I always learned better because we actually learn it, and not get a ton of facts drilled into our brain. I find it that I always remember things I learn myself better than when we sit in front of a whiteboard and textbook vegetating in front of formulae in front of us.
I never got why a lot of the things we learn beyond elementary school we never use, and if they made the content and learning more interesting. The way I find myself usually learning, reverse engineering, which sure makes most kids scream "OMG 2 HRD!1!!", but I actually find it that it forces you to learn it, and not read a bunch of facts and regurgitate them in a "test".
Maybe I'm beyond my years, or just the product of a life secluded from popular culture, but either way I don't like the way that education in the public school system is carried out. Learning where one is interested is what makes one smart; learning about the workings of a flute when one wants to make purpose-built computers isn't going to put said person any closer to his/her interests.
tl;dr:
School structure designed for teaching masses, doesn't aid to entering specialized jobs, needs reform, mustn't be so forced, needs more choice(I don't even SEE a class on anything close to electronics.)
As a former math teacher at another Bay Area high school associated with High Tech High, I can say that technology was (for the most part) integrated judiciously with the curriculum. I don't know if this was also the case at SVHTH, but based on my experience with other schools in the HTH network, I would suspect so.
Whenever I mention to people that I worked at an HTH, their first thought is often that the school is an IT vocational school, or a traditional school but with everything done on the computer. Both of these notions are incorrect.
The main emphasis of HTH's is project based learning. Rather than assigning loads of repetitive homework, teachers are encouraged to create challenging and relevant projects that motivate students to do their best. The project format was used for small, large, individual, and group efforts.
The "High Tech" name is used for two reasons:
1) When applicable, students use productivity software to do their work. This often comes in the form of collaborating with other students on projects using Lotus Notes and Microsoft Office. The idea here is that technology literacy will become increasingly important in the 21st century, and therefore should be integrated into the curriculum.
2) The schools are administrated electronically. Student tracking, facility scheduling, and parent/administration/teacher communications were mostly done through a centralized computer system provided by HTH. This was a great boon to the faculty of my school.
What the summary doesn't mention:
My guess is that this one location probably had too much competition from other charter schools, or was poorly managed by the school district or its employees.
But hey, somewhere down the line Microsoft gave it some cash, so let's all just blame them, right? I suppose there were Windows machines in the school too, har har.
-David
I go to summit prep, and I know a ton of the students that went to HTH. It was pretty much a complete failure. Students thought the school was a complete joke, I didn't really talk to them much about how, but the jist of it was that nobody really did any real work. Summit on the other hand is doing great things, don't think that just because 'prep' is in the name that all the students are privileged. Most aren't. Many came from really tough backgrounds, and the principal is doing some pretty great things, and the teachers really seem to care that their students are learning and are retaining the information. Keep in mind it is a charter school, not a private school. So it's basically just a public school that's getting onto it's feet.
The servers were Linux-based, open source, and free software. The student equipment was Mac. Gates' money didn't come with Microsoft strings attached.
One of my children was a student at the school for three years, before leaving because it sucked big rocks.
So, here's the deal. Two charter schools start in pretty much the same area, and draw from much of the same student base. One succeeds, and the other fails miserably. To me, that says -- among other things -- that the problem with HTHB wasn't "charter schools don't work", but rather that their *particular* implementation of a specific charter model didn't work. And as someone with experience *at that school*, I can tell you the problem was never the charter school model, but largely the administration.
No, I doubt it, not at High Tech High Bayshore. The school sucked. Some particular administration members sucked. Some of the teachers were great, but many were just adequate, and others were terrible. The school didn't actual follow the High Tech High plan. And no, no one explained "why you need to learn this".
My son attended HTHB (High Tech High Bayshore) for three years. Or, to be more clear, he attended the school that started as San Carlos High School as one of the first students, and continued after the school became first loosely affiliated with and then a part of the High Tech High family, becoming HTHB. I didn't pick the school for him; he chose it himself, because he really liked the idea of charter schools, and wanted to attend a small school.
So, the first year, the school had about 78 freshmen enrolled, which was shy of the promised minimum of 80 (and goal of 100). There was a lot of hassle about not quite having 80 students. The school was not well supported by the chartering school district. It was a lot like being at a startup -- we did without many things, everyone was very optimistic, people fullfilled multiple roles, etc. That first year, there were basically only 4-5 teachers total, and they were mostly pretty good. My son had a math teacher who was amazing, dedicated, intelligent, and very inspiring to her students. His physics teacher was also great -- really interested in the topic even though it wasn't what his grad work was in, great with the students. He was a little outspoken sometimes -- he and I got into it in email once over something really silly. My son's Spanish teacher was wonderful and devoted, had a student at the school. His humanities teacher was well, *okay* -- didn't seem on the same level with the other teachers, and sometimes basically taught wrong things. There were days when I thought, "I cannot believe I am trusting my son's future to a startup", but I dealt with it. That year, my son did independent study work to do two years of math in the same year -- he and a few other students were a year ahead of most of the student body. At that time, the school's model allowed for independent study, separate pacing, things like that.
The second year, the school was announced to be more closely affiliated with High Tech High in San Diego, but was not yet "a High Tech High school". The original principal had left the school and instead there was a guy who had been a middle school principal. My son and the other students a year ahead in math were initially independent study with assistance from the Really Great Math Teacher, but at some point, the administration decided that it was too much work for her, and instead put the new math teacher in charge of them. Well *that* guy wasn't a good teacher. In fact, he didn't help the students with their studies; it appeared he didn't have the math ability to understand what they were doing. He told them he couldn't give them tests because he wasn't able to grade them. He was A Bad Teacher, very erratic. Half way through the year, the school gave *that* up, too, and instead sent those advanced math students to take math at a local community college.
Other parts of the year were more uneven, too. My son had a great humanities teacher, but his (new hire) chemistry teacher quit after a few weeks, and the replacement sucked. He taught students the wrong constant for Avagadro's number, things like that. Further, the school had no lab equipment, so they weren't doing any lab component. My understanding is that at some point, it became clear that the course would not be "state-certified" (which means it can be used towards getting into a UC-system university) unless it had a lab component. So the teacher did a basic measuring lab. And then he did it again. And for the rest of the year, every few days they would do pretty much THE SAME LAB, so that they could say that students had X number of lab hours per year. Nothing else. At the end of the year, the administration actually admitted that the students had not learned any chemistry, and that they felt bad, and would try to have a better teacher the next year. They told parents that yes, they had known that the teacher *and many others* had sucked early in the year, but they felt it was only fair to give them a semester to "settle in", and then once that was over, it seemed difficult to repla
To be clear, they graduated 21 seniors, after having enrolled originally 80 students in that entering class. I typo'd "freshmen" for "seniors".
Several commenters have suggested that Summit's touting 100% college bound students is a bad metric, or that the school is probably no better tSuhan HTHB. Well, now that I've had students at both schools, I can tell you why one has become a top-performing school while the other has closed.
1. Summit has emphasized strong teacher over facilities.
I have two children at Summit. They each have 5 teachers and several student teaching interns. With the exception of maybe one so-so teacher, all of these instructors have been *amazingly* good. By that I mean that they're people who genuinely want to teach, who have depth and breadth of understanding in their subjects, who can manage and inspire students. At HTHB, my son had teachers who didn't know their subject well enough keep up with him. At Summit, if my son wants to go beyond the classroom discussion, his teachers are right there with him, able to guide him and offer more insights to deepen his understanding of a subject. Sure, there are a couple of student teachers who seem to be a bit awkward, but they're at the school in part to get guidance in improving on this.
2. Summit has *retained* its teaching staff, giving a sense of continuity and community.
Summit has teachers that it's had for all four years they've been open. As far as I can tell, all their hires have been "keepers". Part of the selling point of these small schools is the idea that students are known and do not fall through the cracks, that they don't become anonymous and "lost" like they might at 2000 student high schools. The thing is, that really needs a continuity in community to work fully, and at Summit, it does.
3. Summit has a "no student left behind" policy that makes the success of *all* students the responsiblity of every community member.
At some point, HTHB gave up on students. If you were failing, they would throw you out. And a lot of students failed out, because they didn't have good teaching, and were generally miserable. At Summit, the entire community -- students, teachers, parents -- are tasked with ensuring that *every* student succeeds. My son excelled at many of his classes; he put a lot of effort into tutoring, guiding, and helping classmates who were struggling, so that *they* could succeed, too. If students are failing a course, they have the support of the entire community to get them back on track. This works in big and small ways. My daughter is not a top student, but even she has days where she tells me about how she was working in a small group, a group member didn't understand something, and the group took responsibility for helping the lagging student. "No student left behind" *works* at Summit.
4. The Summit administration seems to have more emphasis on living the school values of integrity, compassion . . .
After having two years of a marketing guy with the whole "How can you tell I'm lying? My lips are moving." problem, it's *refreshing* to have Summit's administration. Sometimes, they don't know things -- and they say so. I like having honorable administrators, *good people*.
I could go on, but the bottom line is that it's like bad startup vs. good startup. Would you rather have great Aeron chairs and 21" monitors, or coworkers who were the best in the area and who were being paid and given benefits that would keep them *happy*, keep them coding? Summit is the success of people over facilities, of substance and skill over "concept".
Quite sad to watch the whole thing happen, really. Especially during its final two years.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
My charter high school is particularly awesome. The curriculum is composed purely of wonderful dual credit courses. I take nothing but classes at a local community college. Dual credit is nothing new, but wow, nothing but college classes available to a 15 year old is pretty amazing. I just completed my first year in college, with 38 credit hours and a 3.9 GPA. I came from a school district that did not offer any sort of computer programming class whatsoever. For the first time, I feel educated. Community college is what high school should be. Let's face it, the American education system is a bit bloated. You go to high school to prepare for college, and go to college to prepare for life (as some would say), so essentially, you're preparing to prepare for life. I'll graduate after 3 years of high school with my associate degree and a high school diploma. After beginning my college career, high schools, even the one in the article, seem somewhat like a waste of time given the resources and college credit that can be earned at my school. Google Richland Collegiate High School.
As http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/06/how_to_kick_si l.html points out "If I had to point to the single biggest reason for Silicon Valley's existence, it would be Stanford University--specifically, the School of Engineering"
Think of all the companies that have been spawned out of people from Stanford, some of which happened while they were still going to school there. Examples: Google, Yahoo, SUN (Stanford University Network), MIPS
But $640k should be enough for anyone!
A commenter pointed out much higher up in the thread that there are no requirements that the software used should come from microsoft:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=240629&cid=19
I never got why a lot of the things we learn beyond elementary school we never use
And when you finally do understand, it will be too late to go back and do it all over. You learn all of that useless crap so you have a solid foundation to build from. It doesn't matter what you go on to do, everything is built on what came before. If you don't understand that foundation, you won't truly understand what's built on top of it, and you won't be able to add more yourself. If you just want to be a cog in the machine, you can be content to know nothing except your immediate surroundings. Otherwise, you'll soon find yourself wishing you had learned more of the basics when you had the chance.
When parents read to their kids from day 1, and make it fun, and encourage them and help them read, the kids tend to end up with a propensity not only for reading, but learning. When parents just plop them in front of the TV, they have a propensity towards being couch potatoes.
``But they were watching Sesame Street, so it must be the school's fault they aren't making Straight A's!''
If you count on the technology to do the teaching, you aren't teaching!!!!
Having worked at HTH Bayshore (not as faculty), I can agree that this poster is generally correct. They leave out several administrative, and political reasons why this school failed as well. This district is notorious for attempting to kill charter high schools in the area, and the school board is very antagonistic toward charter high schools. There was another failed one, "Aurora" High School, that encountered many of the same issues just a few years previous. That said, the charter school model is not a flawed one - the execution of this particular one was.
Yes, San Carlos High School and High Tech High Bayshore both faced a lot of problems with political and district issues, and it's clear that the district would like to get rid of any charter schools. (The district involved has been in several law suits over refusing to follow state laws concerning supporting charter schools.) And I think that it's easy to think of "the administration" as a big entity, but in the case of small charters "the administration" is often just 2-3 people with a backing school governing board. That was certainly the case for much of HTHB's time. There are also a lot of details and events I left out -- I could write another thousand words on things like that facilities, the "deal" that got HTHB into the building that the school district has purchased, etc.
What I wanted to make clear was that HTHB didn't fail because charter schools are bad, or because it was in a bad location, or because the district didn't want it. HTHB failed because it didn't succeed at the basic mission of attracting and retaining students. Many of the problems could have been solved if the school had had the revenue that filling the seats would have brought. The school and many articles about it have suggested that the revenue wasn't there because the *location* kept students away. I think that's a facile and incorrect excuse.